


Ballet Is For All

by MyrrhHymns (TimoMeneses)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ballet AU, Ballet Dancer Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13655796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimoMeneses/pseuds/MyrrhHymns
Summary: Laura drags Derek to a ballet concert and well, he is amazed.





	Ballet Is For All

**Author's Note:**

> It’s raining outside, my basil is blooming and my internet is down and my bedroom wall is  
> bleeding; it’s Sterek Time!

“Come on, Der! You gotta see this one!”

 

“For the third time, Laura: we donate to fifty charities, I can’t just go to every single fundraiser they do. If I did I’d weigh fifteen hundred pounds of shrimp alone.” Derek didn’t even look Laura in the eyes. She took the book out his hands and forced him to look at her. “Hey!”

 

“There’s no shrimp and it’s not a party. It’s a beneficent concert dance from BIFA and you’re going with me.”

 

“You’re not dressed for a gala.” Derek pointed out his sister’s surprisingly casual outfit. “And what’s BIFA?”

 

“It’s because it’s not a gala, it’s an open performance. You won’t be forced to make small talk with philanthropists, you just go, watch the kids perform and donate out of the goodness of your heart.” She let out a long sigh, her eyes glowing with wonder. “It’s gonna be just ordinary folks supporting BIFA.”

 

“What the hell is BIFA?”

 

“It’s an after-school program that teaches ballet to less fortunate kids. It was founded by this guy who’s like, world famous and decided to retire to teach ballet to poor children.” Laura always had a good heart, but she most definitely had a soft spot for the combination of ‘world famous’ with ‘less fortunate kids’.

 

“And how much the foundation is donating them exactly?” It better had to have at least five 0’s to force Derek out of the couch.

 

“The Hale Foundation is not a sponsor of BIFA, Dearder; they don’t have sponsors as far as I know. They rely on small donations from good people to keep their lights on. And that’s why _you_ are coming with me.” Laura threw the book at Derek and he had to roll out of the couch to avoid the projectile.

 

“Fine, I’m coming.” Derek caved in once he was on the ground. One day he’d win an argument with his older sister, one day for sure. “But I’m not changing.”

 

Laura gave him a glance over. “Jeans, Henley’s and unshaven. It’ll do just fine.” Small victories, Derek...

 

“And I’ll drive!” Derek added.

 

“Oh, no. The Camaro stays, we’re taking an Uber.” Laura’s tone didn’t even give room for arguing. “You have ten minutes to fix your hair.”

 

“I thought I looked just fine!” He replied just out of spite.

 

“I will not be seen in public besides somebody with bed hair! Fix it!”

 

“It’s not bed hair!” Derek yelled back at her.

 

“No, it’s sofa hair! That’s even worse! Fix! It!” One day, Derek. One day... So he ran to his bathroom, to get some hair wax and he was downstairs just in time his sister yelled the Uber had arrived.

 

Their trip was a bit longer than he expected, they were going to the City Theatre instead of the Palace of the Arts – the only place Derek had watched plays and operas and stuff – which was further downtown. When they arrived, Laura was instantaneously proven right; the best well-dressed men were wearing polo shirts. Derek felt something funny inside, like something tight was finally let loose in him. Maybe it was the freedom to wear jeans at a night event, maybe it was the fact there was no VIP line where he and his family usually walked into places. The both of them were waiting in line outside like normal people do. Laura didn’t say it, but her smug smile made it clear she was saying “I said you’d like it.” Derek wasn’t gonna admit defeat this easily, they weren’t inside the theatre yet. A girl with a paper tag named Lucy chimed in.

 

“Good evening guys, welcome to Cinema Magic. Is there anyone else in your party?” Derek didn’t quite get it, so he stayed silent and looked at his sister.

 

“No, it’s just the two of us,” Laura answered the girl with her polite smile.

 

“Okay, here are your tickets. Have fun!” The girl Lucy handed them two tickets and moved forward to salute the people behind them.

 

“Just like that, Dearder.” Laura waved their ticket on Derek’s face, “welcome to a benefit concert.”

 

Derek still didn’t want to prove Laura right, but it was an alien experience to Derek and he kinda enjoyed it. Free tickets, no balcony reserved to his family, the two siblings had to literally run to get a good, centered and close to the stage, but not too close. It was Derek’s first time watching anything from the arena, and that felt pretty good. Except for the lady in the door. There was a table by the front door, collecting donations from the incoming audience, so before the two of them got inside the theatre, Derek had a little argument with that lady. Derek took a few of twenties out of his wallet and put it on the donation box and tried to walk away, but the lady gripped Derek’s wrist with incredible strength for a woman her age and insisted he signed his name in some kind of logbook besides the box. He tried to dismiss her, telling her to sign it as anonymous, but she didn’t budge. Laura had to intervene – against her own blood no less – and forced Derek to put his first and last name beside the hundred dollars he put in the damn box. Fortunately, that was the only thing that bothered him before the show started. Well, that and the stage mother beside him who kept on saying her little boy was part of the show. Derek turned to his sister and whispered.

 

“I thought I didn’t have to make small talk with people.”

 

“Grow up, Derek,” she answered concededly before picking up the woman’s conversation, leaving Derek to sit silently in between the two talking women. Derek thanked the gods when the sound announcing the beginning of the first act buzzed, ending a conversation.

 

The red curtain opened and projected on the top of the stage was written “1. The Lion King”; Derek took a peek at Laura’s playbill and the same words were there, followed by “ALL”. Derek didn’t understand what that’s supposed to mean, so he just watched as the lights turned on and the familiar music of the movie played on the AV system. Twelve kids, from all ages, were on stage, performing the sunrise scene with ribbons. It was a pretty impressive performance, especially for the age of the kids. They twirled and jump with the ribbons, sometimes stretching them so another dancer could do impossible jumps over it; sometimes they threw the ribbons on the air do air flips and catch them on the landing. That was some awesome gymnastics, Derek didn’t know much about the subject, but he sure knew that what he was seeing was damn amazing. He clapped really loud for the kids at the end of their scene; sure, there were a mistake or two, but those were amazingly talented kids.

 

“Pretty awesome, right?” Laura poked him with her elbow.

 

“Yeah, how did you find them?”

 

Laura didn’t have time to answer, the next scene started entitled “2. The Smurfs” and it was followed by ESS on the playbill. A string quartet cover of Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling started to play (don’t ask how Derek knew that) and the stage lights revealed the most adorable children dressed up as the Smurfs. Their scene was a mix of acting and acrobatics, they followed a silly story about life in the Smurf Village, their tiny bodies bent with incredible ease as they piled up on each other in impossible pyramids and rolled away to pose. It was adorable and incredible, the audience cheered them on at the end when the kids made three human pyramids, the middle one was five stories tall and Smurfette sat comfortably at the top and waved for the crowd.

 

“These kids are amazing!” Derek turned to Laura

 

“You seem to be having fun.”  She pointed out smugly.

 

Derek ignored her, she was right anyway. Instead of answering her, he picked the playbill and red the next scene, “3. Space Jam (MSS)”

 

“That means middle school students.” It was like Laura could read his mind.

 

“You think kids this young would get a Space Jam reference?”

 

Laura shrugged, just in time for the next scene. Get Ready blasted from the sound system, that answered Derek’s question; this song was beyond generations. The middle school students entered the stage with basketball uniforms and really convincing basketball. Now, Derek knew they couldn’t use real basketballs for this act – which was a very difficult thing to do, gymnastics with balls – because he knew how basketballs worked. Unfortunately, this scene had a lot of accidents and mistakes, Derek made sure – as did the whole audience – to clap extra hard to motivate them, the kids tried their best.

 

The next scene was the high schoolers performing “4. Singing in the Rain”, a real classic. Their outfits were impeccable, they had three prop lampposts and they all had an umbrella with them. When the string quartet cover started to play, the students gave a real show. Derek was once more left dumbfounded with the impeccably synchronized tap dance as they performed like real pros; they danced with the umbrellas and threw them in the air without missing a step. The only thing holding Derek back from a standing ovation was the knowledge he’d be the only one doing it.

 

The final scene of the first act and what Derek was silently looking forward to was all the students performing “5. Star Wars”. When the Mos Eisley Cantina song began to play, Derek wasn’t even blinking, the smaller children entered the stage dressed as Jedi carrying glowing batons. They twirled and danced as the song went, twisting and throwing the baton in the air and doing air flips before catching them. They were then joined by the elder kids, also dressed as Jedi, their batons could be extended by joining two ends and they took the most of that; at one point the kids did a whole arc joining all their batons. Two high schoolers came through the arc, a girl dressed as Rey a boy dressed as Kylo Ren. Their performance was astonishing, they danced as they were dueling. The whole thing ended too soon in Derek’s opinion, he was a big fan of Star Wars and seeing the kids nail a Star Wars themed baton performance was something he didn’t know he needed until he had it.

 

The buzzer went off, ending the first act, Derek immediately turned to his sister.

 

“How did you find these guys?”

 

“Malia,” Laura spoke like that answered it all, just to tease Derek.

 

“What about her?” Derek was fighting the urge to shake her until a real answer came out of her.

 

“She told me about this group a few months ago. Turns out our little cousin used to date one of the guys on BIFA, she mentioned she wanted to meet up when she came to visit us. I’ve been following them on Insta and turns out they do fundraisers like this once a year. Oh, Dearder, I’ve been waiting for this for months! Aren’t they great?”

 

“You really love them, don’t you?” Derek teased her a little.

 

“And now you do too.” Touché. “I’ve been begging to sponsor them, but apparently that’s not how they work. But I have made some small donations every now and then.”

 

“This is your perfect storm, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you this fired up with the Foundation since the hurricane hit the Caribbean.” Ugh, bad choice of words. It didn’t matter anyway, the buzz announcing the second and final act rung and their conversation died. Now the second act was supposed to be all ballet, the main event.

 

The act opened with “6. Harry Potter (ALL)”, Hedwig’s Theme played as the ballet dancers entered the stage one by one, like owls flying through the night. As the song played, they aligned to each jumped in the air crossing their legs. After that, they got some distance from each other with elegant jumps and each stepped in their places with their feet in a turnout. As the pace of the music sped up, they did extraordinary swings in the air and twisted with one leg up. They each did a pirouette and twirled, the group closed up in an arch with two dancers in the middle. The couple did some moves Derek had only seen in professional ballerinas, like a fish dive and he carried her with ease as she jumped and he turned her on the air. The whole thing was breathtaking, the couple – probably high schoolers – had real talent and real potential from Derek’s perspective.

 

“Oh my gods, Laura! Did you see the two of them! They are the real deal!” Derek couldn’t contain himself, the ballet was at a pro level.

 

“I told you! I’ve seen a few videos of them performing, there’s no doubt in my mind they won’t get a scholarship for college.”

 

Derek’s spirit got a little damped when he saw what was next, “7. Minions (ES)”. It started when the kids entered the stage with a collant loosely based on the yellow things, but the song was a string quartet rendition of Pharrell Williams’ Happy. Derek wasn’t a big fan of the yellow things, but he did appreciate the enthusiastic dance perform from the kids. Most of them couldn’t stand on one foot alone en pointe, but that didn’t stop them from making a heck of a show.

 

“That wasn’t so bad for a minion presentation, was it?” Laura whispered to him sarcastically.

 

“I still find them annoying.”

 

“You’re no fun!” Laura poked him with her elbow again.

 

The Raiders of the Lost Ark song was the song for the next scene, “8. Indiana Jones” performed by the middle schoolers. They had as much fun as they could get, their performance was fun and carefree, featuring an Indiana Jones ballet dancer theatrically interacting with the ladies, snakes, and of course, the rolling boulder. The kids had a lot of creative freedom on that one, that was clear, and Derek really liked it, given the chance, the dancers were giggly at some points. When the boulder set began, one of the dancers curled herself into a ball and rolled the stage from edge to edge following the explorer, Derek could spot s few suppressed giggles from the dancers. At the end, Derek himself was laughing with the cast.

 

“Don’t enjoy yourself too much, little bro.” Laura was also trying not to laugh.

 

“Come on! You gotta give it to them!” Derek answered in between gags.

 

“Yeah, it was pretty fun.”

 

“9. The Lord of the Rings (HS)” Was one he was looking forward to, he smiled when the familiar song of the Fellowship of the Ring echoed through the theatre. The older kid’s presentation was surprisingly held back. They took turns at the center of the stage as each dancer performed a different move. As the number of boys and girls was unbalanced, only five girls got to perform with a partner, but they all showed true skill. The song itself was even paced and quiet, and so was their performance. Derek noticed the couple from the sixth scene wasn’t there, maybe not to outshine the other dancers. It was an okay performance, maybe Derek was just expecting too much from a group of children.

 

“That was nice.” Derek tried not to sound underwhelming.

 

“It really was.” It was all Laura gave him.

 

The waiting for the last scene was a little longer, but not long enough for Derek to press on his sister. The playbill listed “10. The Phantom of the Opera (ALL)” as the end of the final act, so they probably needed a little longer to get ready to end in style. The kids rushed to the stage with the lights still off, Derek could see their shadows moving to their designed positions. The lights when on just when the music hit, the blue lights, and the piano rose together. There were eight dancers on the stage, and their outfits were spectacular, the prodigy couple was dressed as Christine and the Phantom, mask and all. The six dancers behind them were wearing blue bedazzled collants, looking spectacular, four girls and two boys. One of the boys was a middle schooler, and the other, a high schooler; the girls were one from elementary school, one from middle school and two from high school. They were standing still, arms in the air and ready to move, as soon as the beat rumbled, the six dancers moved, one step every two beats, moving closer to the couple on the center. As Christine’s verse began, the ballerina led the dance with the two girls and boy behind her. Half of the stage lights dimmed, showing the main ballerina throwing herself at the boy and he held her low as the two girls twirled beside her. She led the two girls on a series of short jumps, shifting their feet as they froze at the center of the stage. Her half of the stage dimmed and it was time for the boy to dance the Phantom’s verse. The boy proved his talent as well, leading his half of the dancers to the center of the stage with long and swift movements, back and forward until he reached the ballerina. The whole stage lit up as the ballerina and the Phantom, circled each other, growing up tension between them. The boy took the girls hand and they delivered the show, he raised her in the air, he lowered her as she performed a perfect split and he raised her again like she weighed nothing. They circled each other once more and he positioned himself behind her when Christina’s high note hit them she performed a pirouette. And as the notes got higher and her rotation increased, Derek was mesmerized watching the girl spin deliver a pirouette for a whole minute. When the music faded, Derek stood up and clapped until his hands stung. Even after the curtains closed, he kept on clapping.

 

The show was over, or so Derek though according to the playbill. A voice came through the AV, and she couldn’t speak a whole word under the roaring crowd; after three tries she finally could deliver the message. “Ladies and gentleman, thank you for attending Cinema Magic, performed by the students of this very district. Now, the staff would like to deliver a special performance, in memory of the legendary Leonard Cohen.”

 

The curtains opened once again, the words _Rest in Peace_ were projected at the top of the stage and a grand piano was placed at the corner of the stage, a curly-haired man was sitting before the piano and he was staring at the center of the stage. Right in the middle, there was a man wearing a black collant. Derek’s eyes were glued to the man’s lithe physique, his hands, his long pale neck and his perky nose as he was standing still facing the pianist. The pianist began to play the familiar notes and sang the familiar lyrics of Hallelujah, and Derek’s felt like a fist was squeezing his heart. The pianist was a good singer, but the movements of the ballet dancer were flawless. He moved like a river, flowing softly and certain. His feet were precise as a needle, he didn’t fumble, he didn’t miss a step, but most of all, there was real sadness in his dance.

 

 _“Love is not a victory march, it_ _’s a cold and it_ _’s a broken hallelujah_ _”_ Derek felt a tear falling from his eye, he reached for Laura’s hand and she squeezed his hand back. It was beautiful, it was sad, even the pianist’s voice cracked once with a cry.

 

As the curtains closed once more, Derek clapped until his hands stung again.

 

When the curtains opened once more, and each class entered, from elementary to high school. Derek was right, the two dancers from the Phantom of the Opera were high school seniors. The last group to enter were the teachers, and one of the teachers had to literally run and drag the man from Hallelujah. He entered the stage sweaty and blushed, and he blushed even harder when the audience did a standing ovation for them.

 

The curtains closed for good, people exited the theatre with different degrees of urgency, that was the easiest way to spot stage parents from the audience. Derek took his time when they reached the exit, Derek faced the woman guarding the donations box like a changed man.

 

“Oh, hello again.” He said to the woman, she didn’t reply. “Uh, do you take checks?” The woman just nodded; Derek took out his checkbook and signed a number with a lot of zeroes from his own personal fund. He handed it to the woman and he watched her eyebrows raise.

 

“You’re a Hale?” Derek hated that, the way people changed their attitude just because they know he’s Derek Hale.

 

“Yes, Derek Hale. Nice to meet you.” He reached his hand for the shaking; instead of shaking it, the woman gripped his wrist and dragged him away from the table.

 

“I’ll bring you to Mr. Stilinski.” She answered after Derek asked her where they were going. She dragged him through doors and a tunnel and they arrived at an unmarked door, she knocked and called for Mr. Stilinski. Nobody answered. “I’m sorry Mr. Hale, but I believe Mr. Stilinski is still with the parents, but you can wait here. She opened the door and shoved Derek inside, “He’ll be here in a second,” she said before slamming the door in between them.

 

Derek stood awkwardly in the middle of the dressing room. Well, it didn’t have costumes and makeup like he expected, but it had a big mirror with the lightbulbs and everything. Derek was weary to walk around and explore the small room, so he just stood there, motionless beside the door for an indeterminate period of time. His phone buzzed, Laura was calling; just before he could answer, the door opened and Derek just let it go to voicemail. The man from the final scene had just walked in and Derek's throat went dry. The man was still wearing the collant, but with a jacket over it, and he was just beautiful. Derek was speechless, the amber eyes and the bow of the man’s lips were distracting and the sheen cover of sweat and the blushed cheekbones were downright hypnotizing.

 

“Hi.” The man justifiably weirded out by the whole stranger in his dressing room situation.

 

“Hi, I’m Derek. You must be Mr. Stilinski.” Derek raised his hand to the man.

 

“You can call me Stiles, _Derek._ ” Yeah, it was still weird.

 

“Uh... It was an amazing show.”

 

“Thank you. The kids worked really hard for this show.”

 

“You were pretty amazing too. My mom was a big fan of Leonard Cohen.”

 

“Thank you. I just feel like I had to do something, you know?”

 

“Yeah, it’s been a year, can you believe it?”

 

Silence fell between them.

 

“So, Derek. How did you end up in my dressing room?”

 

“I was dragged here.”

 

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

 

“It wasn’t, but it paid off.” Derek saw the blush on Stiles’ perfect cheekbones again, that did something funny inside him. “So it’s safe to assume you’re the ballet instructor?”

 

“Yeah, it is. Is it your first time with BIFA?”

 

“Yes, my sister brought me here. I honestly had never heard of you guys before tonight.”

 

“So, do you wanna hear more about us over coffee?” That was bold and Derek loved it.

 

“I would love to.” Derek couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face even if he wanted to. Stiles grabbed a piece of paper and wrote his number down.

 

“Now excuse me, I gotta change. Could you help me with my zipper?” Derek held Stiles’ broad shoulders and then pulled the zipper down, revealing a broad mole-dotted back, that matched the face. Now Derek flushed a little. “Thank you.”

 

Derek walked back towards the door, and Stiles knew what he was doing, he had a smirk and Derek wanted to take a picture of his profile, the smile, the perky nose... Yeah, Derek was a goner.

 

It took forty hours, forty-eight minutes and seven seconds for Derek to call Stiles.

 

The reason it took him that long was because Derek made the mistake of googling “Stilinski + ballet”.

 

There was a Wikipedia page and thousands of videos of Mieczyslaw Stilinski and Derek devoured every single link he could find. Every single video he watched, it was the last act of BIFA all over again. Stiles was beautiful, but Derek didn’t know if he was falling for Stiles or his ballet. He was mesmerized by the man’s fluid movements, his jumps, his feet, his legs, his arms, his back. Who would’ve thought Derek Hale would be intimidated by somebody else. He was able to shut people up with a scowl and yet his legs wobbled like jelly as he waited for Stiles to pick up the phone.

 

“Hello?” Oh shit! Stiles picked up, and listening to him made Derek want to hang up, he was not ready to hear Stiles’ voice right in his ear. But he wasn’t a goddamn adult, so he wasn’t gonna do that.

 

“Oh, hi! Stiles, this is Derek.” He wasn’t sure how loud he was speaking, but the noise on the other side of the line was very loud.

 

“Just a...” somebody’s muffled voice interrupted Stiles, “shut up Scott!” Stiles’ own voice was muffled like he was trying to cover the microphone with his hand. “Just a second, let me just...” a door slammed on the other side. “Hi... Derek. Sorry about that. So what’s up?”

 

“Uh, not much. Just been wondering if you wanna... I don’t know, hang out?”

 

“Hang out?” Stiles was fighting back a smirk; oh Derek could hear it. “Are you trying to ask me out?”

 

“I was working up to that, yes.” Derek huffed a laugh off.

 

“So were you aiming for a full-on dinner or were you trying to keep it light and go grab a coffee?” Damn, Stiles.

 

“I was thinking of something in between, like lunch.”

 

“You just made that up to prove me wrong, didn’t you?”

 

“Maybe.” Derek really could not hide his smile. Well, this was gonna be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot shorter than I expected. Well, it's better to finish early than let it collect digital dust.


End file.
